WABAN, MA – JetBlue Airlines and Southwest Airlines deliver the best customer experience in the airline industry, according to the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 US consumers.
JetBlue took the top spot with a rating of 75%, placing it 52nd overall out of 293 companies across 20 industries. Southwest Airlines came in second with a rating of 72%, placing it 89th overall. JetBlue shot up from the middle of the pack in 2014 to the top spot in 2015, improving by an astounding 15 percentage-points over the past year.
At the other end of the spectrum, Spirit Airlines, which made its debut on the ratings this year, was the lowest-scoring company in the industry. It received a rating of 47%, which put it in 281st place overall.
“Congratulations to JetBlue for reasserting its customer experience leadership this year,” states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.
Here are some additional findings from the airline industry:
• The ratings of all airlines in the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings are as follows: JetBlue Airlines (75%), Southwest Airlines (72%), Delta Airlines (69%), Alaska Airlines (69%), Virgin America (63%), American Airlines (57%), United Airlines (56%), US Airways (55%), AirTran Airways (52%), and Spirit Airlines (47%).
• JetBlue Airlines (+15 points), Delta Airlines (+6 points), and Alaska Airlines (+4 points) improved the most between 2014 and 2015.
• American Airlines (-5 points), United Airlines (-5 points), and AirTran Airways (-4 points) were the only companies in this industry whose ratings declined between 2014 and 215.
• Overall, the airline industry averaged a 63% rating in the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings and tied for 12th place out of 20 industries. It was also one of only five industries to improve its rating over the past year, increasing its average by 1.2 percentage-points.
Now in its fifth year of publication, the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings is the most comprehensive benchmark of customer experience in the industry, evaluating 293 companies across 20 industries: airlines, appliance makers, auto dealers, banks, car rental agencies, computer makers, credit card issuers, fast food chains, health plans, hotel chains, insurance carriers, Internet service providers, investment firms, parcel delivery services, retailers, software firms, supermarket chains, TV service providers, utilities, and wireless carriers.
To generate these ratings, Temkin Group asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to evaluate their recent experiences with a company across three dimensions: success (can you do what you want to do?), effort (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotion (how do you feel about the interactions?). Temkin Group then averaged these three scores to produce each company’s Temkin Experience Rating.
In these ratings, a score of 70% or above is considered “good,” and a score of 80% or above is considered “excellent.” In this year’s Temkin Experience Ratings, 37% of companies earned a “good” or “excellent” score, while 26% received a “poor” or “very poor” score.
